Break-in at Prinsengracht 263
During the hiding period, Otto Frank's business premises were broken into several times. In the evening of 9 April 1944, night watchman Martin Slegers saw that a door panel at Prinsengracht 263 had been forced open and alerted a police officer.
Melding van poging tot inbraak in het pand Prinsengracht 263
Stadsarchief Amsterdam Copyright: Status onduidelijk
Around half past nine in the evening of 9 April 1944, Peter, who usually checked the doors for the night, discovered that something was wrong. He quietly alerted "the men" and they went to investigate. Later they told the women who remained in the annex that the burglars were still prying at the warehouse door when they entered the warehouse from the stairs. Van Pels shouted "police", after which the burglars fled. But not without kicking another plank off the door.
Of course, there was a good chance that the police would notice the forced door, and they did. Slegers had been patrolling the city center for years along buildings for which he was hired as a night watchman. He regularly encountered suspicious situations and his name appears in numerous police reports. The police officer he alerted, Cornelis den Boef, searched the building around a quarter to eleven but, in his opinion, found nothing suspicious. Later that evening he reported to the watch commander of the Warmoesstraat police station: "However, there were no traces of theft found inside the house."[1]
On the other side of the bookcase, the people in hiding sat in great fear. Anne wrote in her diary: "Footsteps in the house, in the private office, kitchen, then..... on our staircase, no one breathed audibly now, 8 hearts thumped, footsteps on our staircase, then a rattling of the swining cupboard. This moment is indescribable." To make matters worse, this Sunday was Easter Sunday, which meant the office staff wouldn't arrive until Tuesday. Until then, the people in hiding were unsure about what was going on and sat in dead silence in Van Pels' room, under the assumption that the police would be on guard in the building.[2]
On Tuesday morning they managed to reach Jo Kleiman by telephone. Shortly afterwards, Jan and Miep Gies showed up, and, for the time being, the coast seemed to be reasonably safe. Later, Jan heard from greengrocer Van Hoeve that he too had noticed the hole in the door, but thought it better not to call the police.[2]
Footnotes
- ^ Stadsarchief Amsterdam (SAA), Gemeentepolitie Amsterdam, toegang 5225, inv. nr. 2036: rapport bureau Warmoesstraat, 9 april 1944, mut. 23.25. Anne schreef in haar dagboek dat Jan op de elfde nog langs de politie gaat, maar daarvan is geen melding te vinden.
- a, b Anne Frank, Diary Version A, 9 April 1944, in: The Collected Worksr, transl. from the Dutch by Susan Massotty, London [etc.]: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019.